Category: Sports

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of Hall of Fame Coach Lefty Driesell’s stellar career was the Terps’ March 11, 1984, ACC Tournament championship victory over arch-rival Duke, 74-62.

The Terps were led by their star Len Bias, who scored 26 points. Bias, named the tournament’s most outstanding player, had come to Greensboro, NC, with a bit of chip on his shoulder. According to the Washington Post, he felt he had something to prove.

“I didn’t get named to any of the all-ACC teams, first- or second-team,’ Bias said. “I wanted people to know I could play and that I could do it in the big games.”

Duke opened up a 16-8 lead early in the game, behind 10 points from Blue Devils’ star Johnny Dawkins. The Terps shot 44 percent in the first half, trailing by three, 30-27, at the break, and Bias had six turnovers.

He righted his game in the second half, opening with a dunk to bring the Terps within one of the Blue Devils and pouring in 10 points during a 24-3 Maryland run. His sharp shooting, plus Maryland’s move to zone defense and physical play, shut down Duke. With five minutes left in the game, the Terps were ahead 58-47, and Bias still had two monster dunks left in his arsenal. The first came on a Maryland breakaway in transition when Adrian Branch hit a trailing Bias with an over-the-shoulder pass, which ended with one dribble and a spectacular reverse dunk. Moments later, Keith Gatlin, trapped in a triple-team, hit Bias on the baseline with a pass, which resulted in a magnificent windmill throwdown.

Bias’ heroics led a terrific team effort. Center Ben Coleman finished with 14 points and 9 rebounds. Guard Adrian Branch chipped in 12 points, 4 assists and 2 steals, and his backcourt mate Keith Gatlin recorded 10 assists, 3 steals, and only 1 turnover in 30 minutes of play. Herman Veal drew 2 key charging fouls when the score was close, rattling the Blue Devils, and led a tough zone defense that shut Duke down in the second half.

After the final horn sounded, the Terps and their supporters mobbed the floor, and the players attempted to carry Coach Driesell off the floor on their shoulders, celebrating the victory that had eluded Lefty for 15 years at Maryland. Driesell commented “I guess the good Lord just wanted us to win this time. But all of our players played well today, and yes, it is very special to me to have won this thing.”

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the celebration of the 100th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Our final post will highlight the Terps’ dramatic national championship win on April 1, 2002.

The Terps only captured the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Tournament championship three times before leaving the conference in 2014 for the Big Ten. Coach Bud Millikan led Maryland to the first of the three, on March 8, 1958.

The Terps trailed by as many as 13 in the first half, but stormed back to score 59 in the second half, defeating the North Carolina Tar Heels, 86-74. Led by sophomore star Charlie McNeil, who shot 80 percent in the championship game, the Terps outlasted the Virginia Cavaliers (70-66) and Duke Blue Devils (71-65) to reach the final and did not disappoint Terrapin fans with their gritty defense and stellar free-throw shooting to beat the defending conference and national champion Heels. This was the first time that a team from outside Tobacco Road had won the conference championship in the young ACC, so this victory was particularly sweet.

Maryland started the game slowly, shooting only 28.1 percent in the first half, and trailed by 7 at the break, 34-27. Carolina’s 1-2-2 zone plus the Terps’ poor shooting seemed destined to send them to defeat until McNeil took over the game following the intermission. His heroics, combined with the stellar play of teammates Nick Davis, Tom Young, and Al Bunge and the 25 foul shots Maryland made in the last 4 minutes of play, as the Heels repeatedly fouled in an attempt to regain the ball, saved the day for the Terps.

As conference tournament champions, the Terps were the only team from the ACC to make the NCAA Tournament that year, starting a run that has seen Maryland in the Big Dance 26 times since that landmark bid in 1958, when they made it to the Elite Eight.

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the celebration of the 100th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Next in line is March 11, commemorating National Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Lefty Driesell’s only ACC Tournament championship.

The Maryland men’s basketball team has enjoyed a lot of big wins in their 100 seasons on the hardwood, but perhaps none bigger than their 67-66 victory over Notre Dame on January 27, 1979, in front of a sell-out crowd in Cole. The Fighting Irish came to campus ranked No. 1 in the country and riding a seven-game winning streak, while Maryland was unranked and looking for an upset.

The Terps led by as many as 12 during the game, but fell apart in the last 7.5 minutes of the contest, needing some late heroics from stars Larry Gibson and Buck Williams to complement Ernie Graham’s game-high 28 points and eke out the victory. Gibson pulled the Terps to within two, 66-64, sinking two free throws at the 1:26 minute mark. The Irish then passed the ball around until 15 seconds remained (in the days before the institution of the shot clock), and Reggie Jackson fouled Notre Dame’s Stan Wilcox. Wilcox missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Maryland’s Buck Williams grabbed the rebound, one of his 15 on the day. The Terps called time-out with 11 seconds left, then again with 5 seconds remaining to set up the final play.

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Coach Lefty Driesell called for the same set-up that had nearly beaten the No. 2 North Carolina Tar Heels only a week earlier. Jackson passed the ball to guard Greg Manning who gave up an open shot to drive to the hoop. Just as he was about to go out of bounds, he flipped the ball back to Larry Gibson who sank a layup and was fouled by the Irish’s Bruce Flowers, who later seemed unconvinced that he had indeed committed the infraction. “If the referee [said] I did, then I guess I did,” he told the Washington Post after game.

Notre Dame called two time-outs in an attempt to ice Gibson, whose free throw hit nothing but net with one second left on the clock.

The Irish called another time-out to set up a last-gasp, half-court shot that fell short, and the celebration was on! Terrapin fans, many of them waving Maryland flags, mobbed the court, and Driesell was mobbed by a huge crowd on the floor of Cole while being interviewed on national television.

After the game, Gibson told The Diamondback, “That was definitely one of the biggest shots of my life…I was just trying to concentrate on the rim. But I was thinking about beating the No. 1 team in the country.”

You can re-live this No. 1 upset by watching the four reels of footage from the game in the UMD Archives’ collections, which have been digitized as part of our campaign to Help Preserve Maryland Basketball History:

If you enjoyed viewing this landmark Terps’ victory, please visit go.umd.edu/preservembb and make a gift to support our on-going work to digitize additional footage from 1953 to 2014.

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the celebration of the 100th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Next in line is March 8, the 60th anniversary of the Terps’ first-ever ACC Tournament championship.

As we assembled the all-time roster of University of Maryland men’s basketball players over the summer, we came up with some unlikely finds, some gentlemen who were better known for their achievements later in life than they were for the exploits on the hardwood.

We’ve already told you the stories of Charlie “King Kong” Keller, the only Terp to ever play in baseball’s All Star Game and World Series, and author Munro Leaf, most famous for his beloved work The Story of Ferdinand.

But did you know that we had a future lieutenant general playing for the Terps under head coach H. Burton Shipley in the 1940-1941 season?

George Simler, born in 1921 in Johnstown, PA, entered the University of Maryland in fall 1940 and played freshman football and basketball and ran track for the Terps, but left in June 1941 when he was called to active duty in the Navy.

Two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Diamondback published a letter he sent to the university community, showing his love for Maryland and how much he missed being on campus:

Nine days later, he enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Forces on December 18, 1941, and he received his pilot wings on August 5, 1942.

Simler served two combat tours as a pilot in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. He was shot down in July 1944 but successfully evaded capture and returned to the Allied lines two months later. Following the war, he returned to the university serve as a professor of aerospace science and tactics and to complete his education. As he finished out his student days, he rejoined the football team, participating in the Terps’ first-ever post-season bowl game, the Gator Bowl, versus Georgia on January 1, 1948. Five months later, he received his degree in Military Science and was awarded the Sylvester Watch, given to the man who typified the best in Maryland Athletics.

Terrapin football team, 1947. Simler (#40) is third from right in the second row.

Following graduation, he took on a variety of assignments for the Air Force in the U.S. and overseas, including command of various fighter groups and director of operations of the Seventh Air Force and the Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam, even flying several combat missions during that conflict. He also served as vice commander of the United States Air Forces in Europe.

Throughout his 30-year career in the Air Force, General Simler received numerous awards and decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit, Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal, and the Vietnam Air Gallantry Cross. You can find the text for many of his award citations here.

He was killed in a jet crash at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas on September 9, 1972, shortly before he was to have been promoted to full general and assigned to head the Military Airlift Command.

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Simler played in 14 games as a freshman under head coach H. Burton Shipley, scoring 29 points. While perhaps you wouldn’t characterize as a star on the hardwood, he did make an impact as a freshman baller and is certainly a Terp of whom we can be very proud.

1910-1911 MAC basketball team. Captain H. Burton Shipley in the center of the first row.

Varsity competition for the Maryland Agricultural College cadets (the forerunners of today’s Terrapins) began on a chilly January evening in 1911. A squad of seven players traveled south from New York University to play a series of games against colleges in the Washington, DC, area, and the Aggies were their chosen opponent on January 9.

Unfortunately we have not been able to locate many details about this game, but we do know that the Violets’ (named for the color of their uniforms) thrashed the MAC cadets 29-7. Evidently the “dash” with which the Aggies played, according to a mention in the February 1, 1911, Triangle, was not enough to overcome the strength of the defending intercollegiate champions from NYU.

The Aggies’ mainstays that season were Paul Goeltz and Herbert White at forward, Augustus Rupert at center, and guards H. Burton Shipley, Arthur (Doc) Woodward, and Paul Binder. Woodward also served as the team’s manager, and Shipley as the captain.

Shipley’s entry in the 1914 Reveille yearbook

Shipley has a particularly interesting connection to his alma mater. After his graduation from the two-year degree program in 1914, he took some coaching courses at the University of Illinois, then began his coaching career at the Perkiomen, Pennsylvania, Prep School, leading the football, basketball, and baseball teams. Positions at the helm of all three sports followed at Marshall College and the University of Delaware. Shipley also spent a summer as the manager of the Martinsburg, West Virginia, baseball team in the Blue Ridge League before returning to the University of Maryland as the baseball and basketball coach. He led the Terps on the hardwood from 1923 to 1947, winning the Southern Conference championship in 1931 and making the conference finals in 1939. “Ship” also coached Maryland’s first All-American, Louis “Bosey” Berger.

1931 Southern Conference champions

He is better known, perhaps, for his leadership of the baseball team. Shipley took the helm in 1924 as he was finishing up his first season with the basketball team, and led the squad until 1960. The ball field was named for him in 1956 and today is part of Bob “Turtle” Smith Stadium.

These six young men established a program which has risen to national prominence, including an NCAA championship in 2002.

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the commemoration of the 100th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Next in line is January 27, when we commemorate the Terps’ historic 1979 win against the #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

The Big Ten opener for Maryland men’s basketball, December 30, 2014, against Michigan State, was truly a thriller and one of the most memorable victories in the team’s 100 seasons.

The move from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) to the B1G had been a controversial one, so Maryland came into East Lansing to face the Spartans with something to prove. The Terps were enjoying their highest national ranking in 10 years and were ready for the test against one of the conference’s toughest teams.

The first half was a low-scoring affair. Maryland led 17-14 at the break, after the teams combined to shoot only 27 per cent from the field. Defense was the name of the game, and Coach Turgeon said afterwards, “Nobody has guarded us as well as they’ve guarded us.”

Dez Wells hits for two!

The lead see-sawed back and forth in the second half, and it took a three-pointer by Dez Wells, playing in his second game back after suffering a fractured wrist, to tie the score with three seconds left in regulation.

In the first overtime, Michigan State was ahead 55-51 with less than a minute remaining. Turgeon was slapped with a technical foul, frustrated by the lack of a foul call on a drive by freshman Melo Trimble, and it looked like the Terps might collapse. Jon Graham followed with a lay-up, and Wells added two free throws to extend the game again.

Freshman Melo Trimble drives for two of his 17 points against Michigan State.

Maryland took control in the second overtime, wearing down the Spartans to secure a 68-66 win. Despite some serious shooting woes and 21 turnovers, they finished with some impressive stats, out rebounding Michigan State 52-36 and hitting 26 of 32 free throws, all of those after halftime.

Coach Turgeon celebrates the big win.

It’s always tough to win on the road, especially against a perennial powerhouse, but the Terps showed great grit and determination in their first conference victory, a win that Coach Turgeon, all members of the 2014-2015 squad, and Maryland fans everywhere will long remember.

Post-game celebration in the locker-room.

This is the third in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the celebration of the 100th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Next in line is January 9, when we mark the anniversary of Maryland’s first-ever varsity competition.

As we assembled the all-time roster of University of Maryland men’s basketball players over the summer, we came up with some unlikely finds, some gentlemen who were better known for their achievements later in life than they were for the exploits on the hardwood.

We’ve already told you the story of Charlie “King Kong” Keller, the only Terp to ever play in baseball’s All Star Game and World Series, who just happened to be a star shooter for Maryland for four seasons, 1933-1937.

We were surprised to find another famous name on an early roster—Munro Leaf! Leaf, better known as the author of the delightful children’s book, The Story of Ferdinand, took to the hardwood for the freshmen basketballers in the 1924 season.

His court career did not last long, however, and didn’t even rate a mention in the list of his activities included with his senior photo in the 1927 Reveille yearbook.

The roster we compiled was recently used by artist Daniel Duffy to create one of his pieces of “word art,” which was distributed to fans at the November 28 ACC/Big Ten Challenge game vs. the University of Virginia Cavaliers.

See if you can find Munro Leaf or Charlie Keller among the 863 names of former players, coaches, and basketball venues that Duffy incorporated into his work!

We found another surprise or two on the roster, so check back on Terrapin Tales to see who we discovered!

As we continue to celebrate the 100th Season of the Men’s Basketball, devoted Terp fans reminisce on the many standout players and coaches who have come and gone through this program. Over the years, University of Maryland basketball footage has poured in from the athletic department and the private collections of former Terps, and University Archives is excited to announce that we have digitized and preserved footage from the recently inducted Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, Coach Lefty Driesell!

In fall 2016, our University Archivist Anne Turkos and Athletic Archivist Amanda Hawk left College Park and drove to Virginia Beach to meet with Coach Driesell. They had previously discussed his interest in donating the archival footage he accumulated from his time as a Terp, and while very excited to add to our athletic history, both Turkos and Hawk were a bit nervous about the state the footage was in. Once the University Archives team arrived, they found 113 pieces of videotape and film spread between Driesell’s personal storage locker and condo! Even stored in optimum conditions, videotapes recorded as recently as 30 years ago are in danger of becoming unplayable, and film could lose sound after 40 years of deterioration. Safe to say, the urgency to digitize Lefty’s footage was immediately apparent.

But Coach Driesell and the University Archives shared a goal of trying to save these audiovisual pieces and make them accessible to the public. So after packing up the van and making the 3.5 hour trip back to College Park, the Archives staff set immediately to work to make sure to digitize every piece of footage. Lefty’s contribution to Men’s Basketball history can be found at go.umd.edu/leftyfootage.

You can support the University Archives’ work to continue to digitize more Men’s Basketball footage by making a gift to Help Preserve Maryland Basketball History. Our Launch UMD campaign is now open to the public and will run through the conclusion of basketball season on March 8, 2019. Check the Launch site frequently to see how we are progressing, and encourage your family and friends to make a gift as well. What better way to celebrate the 100th season of men’s basketball than by making sure that the games that Terp players and fans once enjoyed on the court will be preserved for generations to come!

The scene in the newly completed Student Activities Building was a festive one the night of December 2, 1955. University officials, dignitaries from around the state, including Governor Theodore R. McKeldin, and representatives from other Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) schools gathered to dedicate the new structure and celebrate the opening of the second largest arena on the East Coast, dwarfed at the time only by Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The ceremonies, chaired by J. Freeman Pyle, dean of the College of Business and Public Administration, featured addresses by Governor McKeldin and Charles Wickard, president of the Student Government Association. Judge William P. Cole, Jr., Class of 1910 and chair of the Board of Regents, presented the building to the university, and President Wilson H. Elkins officially accepted the structure.

(left to right) Victor Frenkil, chairman of Baltimore Contractors, Jim Tatum, UMD athletic director, Judge William P. Cole, chair of the Board of Regents, and President Wilson Elkins at the dedication of the Student Activities Building

Following all the speeches and photo-ops, the Terps took to the court against the Virginia Cavaliers. Bob Kessler scored the first points in the new arena, hitting two free throws in the opening moments, but Virginia answered back quickly, with two free throws of their own from Bob McCarty and a basket by Bob Hardy. The Terps hit a lay-up and capitalized on an offensive rebound to take the lead at 6-4. At halftime, they were in front of the Cavaliers by 4, at 34-30, and they continued to pull away in the second half, thanks to some hot shooting from Kessler and teammate Bob O’Brien.

Game day program, Dec. 2, 1955

Game action, Dec. 2, 1955

Ultimately Maryland prevailed in a low-scoring affair, 67-55, the ACC opener for both teams. Kessler finished with 23 points, and O’Brien 15, as the high scorers for the Terps.

Who could have predicted at the time that the Terps would also end their playing days in Cole with a game against those same Virginia Cavaliers, winning that final contest on March 3, 2002, 112-92.

Today the historic field house, named in December 1956 for Judge William P. Cole, Jr., has been re-purposed as the Terrapin Performance Center, with a dazzling indoor practice facility; the Center for Sports Medicine, Health, and Human Performance; and the future home of the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

This is the second in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the commemoration of the 100th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Next in line is December 30, when we mark Maryland’s first win in the Big Ten.

It’s alive! Our Launch UMD campaign to preserve Maryland’s men’s basketball history has gone live, and we are excited to get going on this major fundraising effort!

As we celebrate the beginning of the 100th season of men’s basketball at UMD, the University Archives embarks on one of its most ambitious initiatives EVER—a project that will digitize and make publicly accessible over 5,000 hours of UMD Basketball footage. This project will cost $500,000, and we will need the support of many fans to preserve this important history. You can join them in this critical initiative by visiting go.umd.edu/preservembb and making a gift today.

The collection includes 1,207 reels of 16 mm film and 2,727 videotapes, dating from 1953, the days of head coach Bud Millikan, to 2014, the end of Coach Mark Turgeon’s third season. When all the footage is converted to digital form and made accessible online 24/7/365, former players and coaches, members of the current campus community, and Terp fans will be able to watch games of the past anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

The clock is ticking, though, on preserving this significant slice of Terrapin athletic history. 16 mm film has its own condition issues, but surprisingly, videotape is even more susceptible to deterioration.

Sample of deteriorating film in UMD Archives

Selection of videotape formats in UMD Archives

Tapes recorded even as recently as 30 years ago are in danger of becoming unplayable within the next five years, so the Archives needs to move quickly to raise the funds needed to convert these fragile materials.

You can support our work by making a gift to Help Preserve Maryland Basketball History. Our Launch UMD campaign is underway and will run through the conclusion of basketball season on March 8, 2019. Check the Launch site frequently to see how we are progressing, and encourage your family and friends to make a gift as well. What better way to celebrate the 100th season of men’s basketball than by making sure that the games that Terp players and fans once enjoyed on the court will be preserved for generations to come!